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European court upholds Microsoft antitrust fine, cuts it down ever so slightly to $1.1 billion

In the latest chapter of its long fight against a EU antitrust probe, software giant Microsoft has seen its request to void an earlier imposed fine of 899 million euros declined by Europe’s second-highest court.

The fine was initially imposed in 2008 by the European Commission’s competition watchdog after Microsoft failed to comply with a 2004 antitrust order to provide far less dominant rivals with data to help them work with the company’s OS.

“The General Court essentially upholds the Commission’s decision imposing a periodic penalty payment on Microsoft for failing to allow its competitors access to interoperability information on reasonable terms,” the court said in a statement.

Microsoft may make a single final appeal of the ruling to the European Union’s highest court, the European Court of Justice.

But, today’s decision essentially “rejects all the arguments put forward by Microsoft in support of annulment,” the General Court said. Ouch.

The fine was on top of Microsoft’s earlier penalties of 497 million euros (approximately $621 million today) and 280.5 million euros ($350 million).

Robin Wauters is the European Editor of The Next Web.
He describes himself as a hopeless cyberflâneur, a lover of startups, his family and Belgian beer.
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